Dear Friends and Family,
I realize that I have been out of contact with you for some time. I do not believe that I
wrote about the very conclusion of my Vietnam trip. During the two days in which I collected
my belongings in Singapore, and the two months that I was working, I had limited time, and
neglected to write, in favor of other recreational activivies. Access to this google blog has
also been restricted during my travels in China. Here are the essentials of what I have been doing.
-I toured central Vietnam, and visited the old imperial city of Hue, and saw the ruined forbidden
city of the Nguyen dynasty. I am not sure how to pronounce 'Nguyen'.
-At a different site in Hye, a imperal mausoleum,
I saw one of the loveliest Asian courtwards of my travels, with roofs arranged so that I felt comforably enclosed, but still had access to the sky. There was also a courtyard with decently manicured bonsai, in an
attractive array. There was also the blue car that can be seen in the background of the famous picture of the Buddhist monk on fire. I should mention that the events of the 1970's were not a major theme of this trip, and that
I hope to better understand them in future readings.
-I then journeyed to the immaculately preserved trading town of Hoi An, purposefully left untouched by both sides in the American War. I ran into my acquaintance from Hanoi, as I rode my bicycle past the tea house where he was sitting. I had a cup of iced chicory coffee, and we had a nice conversation. The place was run by deaf people, and the silence was serenely peaceful. A crowded, chaotic, dusty, hot, humid city like Hanoi will stress you out even if you are exclusively enganged in recreational activities as I was, and that tea house was the most relaxing place that I have ever been. There was a friendly, silent confrontation however, when I tried to pay them for the coffee, which I guess they did not keep track of since I had ordered it at the same table as my friend, who had previously ordered.
-I should mention that I also visited the thousand-year-old ruins of the Champa kingdom, whose architectural features included columns directly influenced by classical Greece, and roofs influened by Polynesia.
-In the Saigon (that's the coloquial name) airport I finally had Vietnamese food that was basically the same as the food from Eden Center, the Vietnamese shopping center in Northern Virginia, where they fly the South Vietnamese flag. Talk about a lost cause.
-In Singapore I stayed in my favorite hostel. It is probably the cheapest accomodation in Singapore. Like everything in that city, it is immaculately clean, but it is a very minimal operation. It get's Western backpackers such as myself, but it also get's a whole host of other interesting people, such as an incredibly friendly Malaysian-citizen auxiliary police officer, and some slightly shady, but still great to talk to Indian businessmen. They all remembered me from when I stayed there before I went to Vietnam, which was nice, and I went on a jog with the police officer, who is training for his fitness test. He had a funny little joke; the first time I stayed there, I had the bunk next to him (on the bottom), and before he went to sleep, he would hang up a towel from the top bunk to block any light and sound, and he would say 'OK, it's closing time, I am closing up the shop!'.
-I should also mention that I randomly ran into one of my Singaporean JHU BME classmates on the subway, after getting my stuff from storage. Gabriel Chew, are you reading this?
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I waved goodbye to Singapore from the plane, and I could see across the Island, and the straits of Johor, to Malaysia. A foggy overcast, combined with the tropical sun gave everything a warm orange glow, but prevented me from seeing to the Eastern or Western tips of the island.
From the Kuala Lumpur airport, all you could see was oil palm plantations from horizon to horizon, but the architeture of that airport was highly impresssive, and included a long, gently gently curved arch supporting a concourse, under which planes taxied.
After going through customs in Shanghai, I was happy to see the smiling face of a someone holding a sign that said 'Jordan Mandel, Johns Hopkins University'.
That's enough for now.
Jordan
